The Information Diet
I have been pondering over this over a long time and its time I share how I started my journey towards this diet. No, this is not about weight loss but it’s actually about how overloaded my brain is. I am reguralrly imparied by how ineffective it has become and makes me pound my head to a wall in hopes of becoming a little more effective. sigh! Okay, I know this is all confusing and let’s take a step back and start with some history okay?
A peek into the past
I keep myself updated on the current affairs and simply cannot start my day without a dose of the daily news & a fresh dose of new music everyday.. I have the compulsiveness to read new things & definetly suffer from the fear of missing out (FOMO). I get bored with music and visuals quickly and need to find something new very quickly. My attention spans are in spurts and makes it harder for me to focus on the tasks in hand. I use apps to track literally everything but all i need is a pen & a paper most of the time.
Yes, I am actually addicted to information & I admit it.
Realisation
I have wondered for a long time why I am so fatigued all the time and why i’m eating so much to keep myself active. I let go of Facebook but I replaced it with Instagram, Youtube & Hyper which lead to late night mindless video watching. I kept hearing from my dear friends that I am consuming way more than I should. I did not pay heed, I denied it all. I read & read but i did not know my end goal.
And then one day, I read 2 most important books:
Curation: It made me aware that I can take control of the information & make sure it adds value to my life & the people around me.
Silence made me aware of the types of information I am consuming & how it overloads me.
These books made me come face to face with my addiction & made me aware. Also, being a UX Designer showed me how conflicting it is to the role & my journey. I now have a birds eye view of how information addiction is a huge problem & is prevalent in the current times. I was torn apart between the choices I made in my career and decided to make changes personally & professionally to address it.
But what is information & its overload?
Information is something as trivial as knowing your dear friend’s birthday(dates & number) or it could be just the news (video) or just remembering some favourite songs(music). Now a days, it’s exploded completely and spiralling out of control. Everyone makes content. Everything around you is some form of content. You go into a cafe, it will have images of the menu, music to set ambience, your food, your bill. Anything is information!
Now imagine a scenario where you compulsively use information for happiness or to get out of sadness or to keep yourself in the known. It makes you live as if you know everything and as if you have to know everything.
A huge contributor to the “I know” generation is that tiny device in our hands. It has allowed us to access so much information at any given moment that we fail to understand the reality & do not verify the truth in it.
Information is a double edged sword.
A three month experiment
To reduce my overload, I want to experiment for 3 months, document & learn. Here’s what I am thinking of doing:
- Consume information only when truly necessary
- Have a day off every week without electronics
- Cut down the time I listen to music & watch videos
- Use my time for more productive things (Doodling, gymming, etc).
I will write a post every week on my progress to track how I am doing. And when it comes to tracking, there’s always a start & an end. And I hope my end stats will show the above time reduced to 10%.
My Start (Current Stats):
- Music: 5 hours everyday (its mostly in the background)
- Video: 3 hours everyday (mostly during bedtime includes Netflix)
- Surfing the web: 5 Hours everyday (mostly looking up a lot of blogs, articles & news).
Excited to kick off week one. See you next week!
